Your Smart TV Might Be Watching You

A Smart TV is great, except when it gets a little bit too smart for its own good. In theory, viewers are supposed to watch the TV and not the other way around, but some owners of certain LG smart TV’s are finding that their television sets are routinely spying on them. In a world currently beset with media leaks regarding how the government spies on people through their cell phones, this news is certain to raise more than a few eyebrows. It may also send certain people back to the store to demand a refund or a not-so-smart TV.

This Could Be A Problem…

The reports of certain Smart TV’s spying practices were recently brought out into the open thanks to a blogger in the UK who goes by the name of DoctorBeet. He realized while watching the TV that channel information was being transmitted to a remote server every time he switched to a different channel. He also noticed that the file names of every USB file he viewed were also being sent somewhere. Here’s what’s even more interesting: DoctorBeet had already switched off the “collection of watching info” setting that was hidden within the settings menu. Apparently that button is just there for show and does the same thing no matter which option you choose.

DoctorBeet’s problem was reported by Engadget, who reached out to LG for a statement. Here’s how LG responded to the smart TV spying allegations:

“We’re looking into this now. We take these claims very seriously and are currently investigating the situation at numerous local levels since our Smart TVs differ in features and functions from one market to another. We work hard to get privacy right and have made this our top priority.”

In the past, people could just flip on their TV’s and watch them without worrying if they were being watched back. I guess those days are now over.